The inspiration for this composition came to me in 2 ways. A friend in Santa Fe approached me and thought it would be cool for me to compose music to a series of watercolors she painted depicting her impressions of the Native American Medicine Wheel (Navajo), Water, Earth, Air and Fire. Her paintings highlight the video! She is also a Shaman and we met almost every Wednesday afternoon for a year so she could teach me about each of the Elements! So the inspiration for The Elements came from her artwork, and my learnings of the Medicine Wheel!!

The inspiration for this composition came to me in 2 ways. A friend in Santa Fe approached me and thought it would be cool for me to compose music to a series of watercolors she painted depicting her impressions of the Native American Medicine Wheel (Navajo), Water, Earth, Air and Fire. Her paintings highlight the video! She is also a Shaman and we met almost every Wednesday afternoon for a year so she could teach me about each of the Elements! So the inspiration for The Elements came from her artwork, and my learnings of the Medicine Wheel!!

The inspiration for this composition came to me in 2 ways. A friend in Santa Fe approached me and thought it would be cool for me to compose music to a series of watercolors she painted depicting her impressions of the Native American Medicine Wheel (Navajo), Water, Earth, Air and Fire. Her paintings highlight the video! She is also a Shaman and we met almost every Wednesday afternoon for a year so she could teach me about each of the Elements! So the inspiration for The Elements came from her artwork, and my learnings of the Medicine Wheel!!

The inspiration for this composition came to me in 2 ways. A friend in Santa Fe approached me and thought it would be cool for me to compose music to a series of watercolors she painted depicting her impressions of the Native American Medicine Wheel (Navajo), Water, Earth, Air and Fire. Her paintings highlight the video! She is also a Shaman and we met almost every Wednesday afternoon for a year so she could teach me about each of the Elements! So the inspiration for The Elements came from her artwork, and my learnings of the Medicine Wheel!!

This is my composition entitled Passacaglia written for concert band! I wrote it in the baroque passacaglia form but with lots of modern percussion. I wrote it several years ago for my middle school band and I have updated and now feel it is more appropriate for high school level! The photos are from my trip to Big Bend National Park in Southwest Texas. I hope you enjoy it! Here are links to Sheet Music Direct and Sheet Music Plus if you are a band director interested in purchasing! https://www.sheetmusicdirect.com/se/ID_No/1609707/Product.aspx https://www.sheetmusicplus.com/en/product/passacaglia-22846039.html

This composition is for symphonic band and it is a tone poem that describes a young soldier's first days in Vietnam during the war. The piece is in 3 sections: Fast-Slow-Fast. Section 1 depicts the soldier's first entry into Vietnam and hopefully captures his anxiety and fears. Section 2 depicts his appreciation of the overwhelming beauty of the country. Section 3 describes the soldier's first taste of battle. The composition was inspired by an incredible sculpture that is the centerpiece of the New Jersey Vietnam Veteran's Memorial in Holmdel, NJ. All the artwork and photos in this video were created by Vietnam veterans and this piece is dedicated to all Vietnam War Veterans. Thank you for your service.

Magic Carpet is a concert band composition I wrote for my 6th grade band several years ago. For the photographs, I tried to think of the most magical place I've ever visited and hands down that has to be Yellowstone National Park. The photographs are from my trip in August of 2018. Hope you like it!

This is the 1st movement of Symphony for Strings I started 18 years ago as a string quartet and finally had the time this summer to finish it (and fix all the problems the first version had!). The movement is Neo-Classical in style and utilizes ostinati throughout. I was going through an ostinato phase when I started writing the symphony and I think that coincided with a time when I was definitely taking a keener interest in the the bass, and eventually lead to me learning the instrument. Many, many classic rock bass lines behave like the old classical and baroque ostinati (more in the baroque era I guess...) so I guess there is a connection. The form is Sonata-Allegro with 2 false recapitulations. The photographs are my favorite nature pics from around Santa Fe, mostly in the Santa Fe National Forest. I hope you enjoy it!

Here is the 2nd movement of my Symphony for Strings which is in Neo-Romantic form. Like the first movement, this movement utilizes ostinati throughout which I tried to balance out with long, Romantic-like melodies... The photography is from in and around Santa Fe but I tried to keep the theme of this movement to mostly man-made stuff from the region including the Tsankawi Prehistoric Cliff Dwellings (part of Bandelier National Monument), La Cieneguilla Petroglyphs (both date back to at least the 13th century), Pecos National Historical Park, and of course good old downtown Santa Fe! I hope you enjoy and if you do please don't forget to "like" and "share"!